Judges 11

Chapter 11. Samuel, the Great ReformerSpeak Lord, for your servant is listening. (1 Samuel 3:9)The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. (1 Samuel 3:19)The life of Samuel marks a transition period in the history of Israel from the time of the judges to the kingdom of Saul and David. His was an epoch life like Abraham’s, Joshua’s and Luther’s. The Great Reformer He stands out as the great reformer of his time, lifting his people out of the dark ages of the Old Testament and leading them into the golden age of David’s kingdom and Israel’s preeminence among the nations. More than any other character of the ages he resembled Martin Luther, the great reformer of the Christian dispensation, who lifted the Church of God out of the corruption of bondage and superstition and gave us the Reformation, the Bible, the doctrines of grace and the light and liberty of Protestantism. The Founder of the Prophetical Order Samuel also enjoyed the distinguished honor of being the founder of the school of the prophets and the first in that glorious succession of holy men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and who formed the unbroken line of truth and righteousness in the history of God’s ancient people. There were three representative official classes in the Old Testament—prophets, priests and kings. Among the priests were many honored names—Aaron, Phinehas and Ezekiel—but the priesthood often became corrupt and allowed the very sanctuary of God to be defiled by the abominations of heathenism. The kings were also nobly represented by such names as David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah. But the prophets formed an unbroken line of faithful witnesses and glorious examples. Amid all the declensions of the nation and the apostasies of their priests and kings, they not only stood true in their testimony to the will of God, but lived out in their lives the principles of integrity and uprightness. From the days of Samuel they formed a distinct class and had a regular school of training, corresponding somewhat to our theological seminaries and training institutes. Samuel had the preeminence of being the founder of these prophetic schools. Later in his life he went about the country as a pastor and overseer, visiting the towns and villages, holding conventions from place to place and instructing the people in the law of God and the schools of the prophets in the principles of the kingdom. His Spotless Life But, above all his public ministries and even his national influence, Samuel was himself a beautiful and spotless character. In an age of almost universal corruption, he lived a life of blameless piety. And at a later period, when bidding farewell to the nation as their judge, he could truly call upon them to witness to his uprightness and integrity. “‘Now,’” he said, “’… I am old and gray,… I have been your leader from my youth until this day. Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right.’ ‘You have not cheated or oppressed us,’ they replied. ‘You have not taken anything from anyone’s hand’” (1 Samuel 12:2-4). Samuel stands with Joseph, Joshua and Daniel, one of the blameless lives of sacred history. He was no doubt human in his infirmities, but no fault has been recorded against him and his personal character is the most eloquent testimony of all his history. His Mother But we are permitted to trace this beautiful life to its source. Some characters, like Elijah suddenly burst upon our vision and we know them only in the public and closing chapters of their history. Some, however, are like a beautiful river that you can trace to its crystal fountain and follow through all its winding channels until, like our own Mississippi, it pours its volume into the sea and flows long after as a Gulf Stream through the mighty ocean. We are permitted to stand by Samuel’s cradle and even to know something of his prophetic future before his very birth. We enter into the joys and sorrows and the believing prayers of the holy mother, who was the real fountain, not only of his natural life, but also of his piety and holy power. And we walk side by side with him through his childhood and his youth until, at last, we meet him in the busy activities of his manhood and follow him until he lays down his ministry and passes to his honored rest. His Times We do not need to go farther than his own family to understand the social condition of the age. Samuel’s own mother, poor Hannah, was the victim of the curse of polygamy—ever a sign of a low condition of social morality. Then, when we turn to the priesthood, as illustrated in the family of Eli, we see a shocking exhibition of low sensuality, licentiousness and cupidity that would disgrace even the grossest heathenism. Eli himself, while a just and holy man in his own private character, was weak and inefficient as a judge and priest and utterly failed to restrain his ungodly family or exercise any just administration of public affairs. The whole nation was, therefore, in a most pitiable condition, at the mercy of its foreign oppressors and so enfeebled that at a period a few years later we find that there was not a sword in Israel, and they had even to go to the grindstones of the Philistines in order to grind their plow coulters for the ordinary operation of husbandry. It was at such a time as this that God called Samuel to be the deliverer of his country. We need never say that the adverse circumstances of our life forbid the possibility of living to purpose and living for God. The blacker the cloud the brighter may be the rainbow. The harder our situation the more can our life become a protest against it. The lighthouse needs the midnight darkness and the stormbeaten shore to bring out its value and its purpose. There is no situation so trying and difficult but God can sustain us in it, and when we have learned our lesson, enable us to triumph over it. We, too, like Samuel, are called to live in degenerate times. We are approaching the closing age of the dispensation, and the apostasy and tribulation which are to precede the coming of the Lord. It is not for us to excuse ourselves by prevailing wickedness, but to make our lives a protest against it and to shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of truth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Philippians 2:15-16), a savor of life unto life if possible, but, if not, at least a savor of death unto death (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). His Birth He was the child of faith and prayer, and his very name means “asked of God.” God loves to have every glorious thing born of someone’s faith. Moses could not come until there was a Jochebed to believe for his deliverance and then to train him for the marvelous events of his history. Before even the Son of God could appear, Mary of Bethlehem had to be taught by the Holy Spirit to believe for His birth and to lay down her womanly pride in the most costly sacrifice she could have been called to make at her Lord’s command. And so Samuel is but the outcome of Hannah’s piety, consecration and faith. Back of that faith there lies a broken heart, a woman’s tears, a life of bitterness, disappointment and humiliation. Poor Hannah was the second wife in a polygamous system whose fruit must ever be jealousy and sorrow. But out of her crushed heart came at last the believing prayer that brought her victory and consolation. All other sources of comfort had failed her, and at last she went to God, and at the tabernacle in Shiloh she poured out her prayer in sobs and tears until old Eli, the priest, thought her drunk and reproved her for her conduct. But she told him her story, and he sent her away with blessing and encouragement, and God whispered to her heart that her prayer was granted and her days of mourning ended. And she did not forget when the blessing came that it was not hers, but God’s, and lovingly and faithfully she gave it back to Him from whom it came. As soon as her little son was able to be left without a mother’s watchful care she took him to the tabernacle and gave him to Eli to be brought up as a child of the sanctuary. “So now I give him to the Lord,” she said. “For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:28). Not for a few days or weeks did she give him up, but she gave him wholly and with a sacrifice that only a mother could understand. She consented that the little feet for whose pattering she had longed should be heard no more in her cottage, that the prattle for whose music her lonely heart had waited a lifetime should sound no more in her ears; but that she should live on till the end alone, glad to know that he was all the Lord’s and she was giving back to God the blessing which He had brought to her. This is love and this is the difference between the love of earth and the love of heaven. Earthly love loves for the pleasure it can find in loving. Heavenly love loves for the blessing it can give to the loved one. Hannah knew that her sacrifice was best for Samuel, and that in giving him to God she was getting more for him than a mother’s selfish fondness could ever have bestowed. And yet there was still the sweet thought behind it all that he was hers. She was not losing him but lending him, and God counted her sacrifice a real service and some day would restore the loan with infinite and eternal additions. If only every father and mother today could understand the privilege of giving their child to God and getting him back some day with God’s compound interest. You will give your daughter to a worthless man, but how slow you are to give her to Him who gave His life for you. Samuel’s Childhood There are some lives whose glory it is to have been saved from the depths of sin. But there is even a higher beauty in having been so fully saved that our very childhood has been kept from the blight of corruption and depravity. This was Samuel’s high privilege. He was always a holy child. He never knew the defiling breath of wickedness. This may be the privilege of your child, Christian mother. God help you to protect your innocent child from the foul breath of sin’s contamination and always to shelter that trusting life under the protecting wings of God. This may be your privilege. Pray that God will have your child’s earliest years, and may he never know the mystery of iniquity and the memories of sin and shame which, though they may be forgiven, yet come back to defile and distress the heart. Divine Grace But Samuel was not holy and good by natural birth or disposition. He was not called because he was good by natural temperament, but he was saved and sanctified as we and our children still must be only by the grace of God. Samuel, like every child of Adam, had to be born from above and receive the divine touch and the divine grace, and be brought into fellowship with the same supernatural power that saves us all. We have the story of Samuel’s first touch of God, and it gives us the keynote not only of his life, but of every holy and heavenly life. The whole story is told in a single word—Samuel became acquainted with God. God revealed Himself to Samuel and Samuel hearkened, listened and henceforth, forever, always implicitly obeyed. His Hearkening The keynote of Samuel’s life and of every saintly life is, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10). Samuel’s task was not a hard one, and yet how rarely it is repeated. He had simply to attend to God, and say and do just what He told him. This is the difference between the earthly and the heavenly life. The one is merely human, the other is divine. The crisis moment comes in every life when God speaks to us, and we hearken to Him and begin to walk in His holy fellowship and His perfect will. The very peculiarities of Samuel’s call linger in his later life in his message to Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). All his blessings had come to him by hearkening and obeying, and all Saul’s calamities had come to him because he willfully took his own way and refused to listen to God. At first even he made some mistakes and misunderstood the voice that spoke to him so gently in his little chamber. Three times it called to him in vain, and he thought it was the old priest’s message. But even when he did not understand he still responded and sprang to his feet, ready instantly to obey. And so God will give us time to understand His voice and learn His will. What He asks of us is the obedient spirit, and the readiness to hear and understand. He will call again and yet again if necessary, and teach us to know all that He would have us to do. Let us listen so attentively and respond so quickly that we will not need the stroke of His hand or the bit or bridle of His discipline to make us comprehend His will. He can guide us with His eye and flash into our inmost being the instinctive intuition of His holy will. Oh, the sweetness and the rest! Oh, the safety and the strength of the life that walks with God in this inner fellowship and knows no will but His! His Obedience But Samuel had to obey as well as hearken, and it was no easy task to go to Eli and tell him all that God had spoken against his house. It was the hard test which often came again in his later ministry as the messenger of God to sinful men. Again and again did he have to go to those he loved and say to them the thing which nearly broke his heart. A faithful minister cannot always say smooth things. Often must we speak the words of God where we know that they will wither and break and perhaps alienate the dearest friendships of our lives. But Samuel obeyed so perfectly this time that he never was tempted to disobey again, and he learned the lesson well, which in later years was so often repeated in the history of Israel and the story of Saul. His Life and Work We have a picture of Samuel’s life and work. Henceforth, “the Lord was with Samuel,” we are told, “… and he let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord” (1 Samuel 3:19-20). What a picture of a successful life, where every word counts and the Lord lets nothing fail or have to be undone or taken back. How many of our words fall to the ground! How vain our efforts and our prayers and how often we have to traverse over again the paths of vanity! How can we have an established life whose every step is fixed in God and led in the way everlasting? Only by doing as Samuel did, ever hearkening to God and speaking and acting only and always in Him. Then we will not need to advertise ourselves. Men will find us out. Sad and empty lives will come to us for help, and our work will be its own witness that God is with us. God help us to live such lives! Our Epoch Age We, too, are in an epoch age. God help us to be epoch men—men for the times on which the end of the age has come. Samuel was called to act in the beginning of the Hebrew history. We are permitted to see the close of our dispensation. Never before did the world so need the highest types of men and the noblest, truest kinds of ministry—lives that understand God, souls that hearken, ears sensitive to His lightest whisper and wills adamant to obey implicitly His every word. These are the men that God is looking for to mold the history of the world’s last generation, and to usher in the kingdom of David’s greater Son, as much as He needed a Samuel in the darkest days of Old Testament history and for the inauguration of David’s reign.